thursday morning

When I have my 8am Swedish class and ended up waking up late.
When I step out of my 8am Swedish class wearing my TOMS and it's pouring rain and end up ruining my TOMS and getting my feet wet.
When I'm stuck in a lecture with a professor who I have no interest in and makes us create posters every other day.
When I have a 10 page group paper to write on a rainy day.
When even 2 cups of coffee back to back still can't keep my awake.

But then I hear that there is all you can eat waffles and all you can drink coffee for 40 SEK (equivalent to $6 US Dollars.)

All of a sudden I can see clearly know the rain is gone.

Swedish waffles are a lot thinner than US waffles and instead of the Belgium looking squares or the frozen Eggo circles, these waffles are heart shaped. Representing my love for them. (Just kidding, I have no idea why they are heart shaped...)

Topped with cream, berries and chocolate chips, my stomach was satisfied and all my troubles of my wet feet, tired eyes and uninteresting professor went away. 

Waffles and Coffee make the world go round.

Happy Thursday/Friday and have yourself some unlimited waffles and coffee for me despite the weather conditions and how bad/good your day is.

It'll do you good.

cultural day

Let's talk about this weekend.
Fortunately, I wasn't sick and dying so I could actually go out and not feel miserable.
Luckily, it was Cultural Night in Uppsala.
What is cultural night?
Basically, it's a full day where people from different cultures come out in the downtown area and have food stands, concerts, perform dances, and clothes stands and just celebrate being cultural.
Except it's throughout the whole day, so I guess you can call it Cultural Day/Night?
But anyways, it was awesome.
Here is how my day started.
First, I ventured out to downtown at around 11ish to find a hair straightener because this whole three weeks without a hair straightener is not the biz. Poofy hair and messy buns were not coordinating with my outfits and my hair just looks better when it's straightened and pretty.
After that, I met up with a friend and her Swedish buddy and walked around Uppsala and looked at all the events.
Let me just tell you something first, Uppsala is a small city, kind of the feel of Walnut Creek, where there are people everywhere, in the downtown area but not too much where you can still walk around and have at least 5 feet of space between you and a stranger.
This was not like Walnut Creek, it was like San Francisco. There were people everywhere. I felt so claustrophobic.
But then my friend stated the most beautiful words that I was so glad to here....
"Look, there's donuts!"
Donuts. Real, legit American looking donuts.
This was the best 5 minutes of my life.
Strangely enough two days before cultural night, I was craving a donut, and thought "Sweden needs some donuts. It's got Pop Tarts, American candy, chocolate milk and Oreos...donuts, man, I need a donut."
Side note: I rarely have a donut and so when I crave one it's like a monumentous moment. It's a special moment, with that sugary, glazed, extremely diabetic, unhealthy, heart-burn-waiting to happen special moment. It's like those moments when it's just you and the donut together, happy and care-free.
My moment was there.

Disgustingly sugary, but yet so mouthwatering.

Ice Cream on a Donut?
Too far for me bro, too far.

I know what that says!
Banana Donut! 

Apple Donut!
(I'm getting really good at this Swedish thing, Ja?)

But these weren't the donuts that I got.

I got a special that brought me some nostalgia from my Portland days.

The M & M donut.

Even more sugary and glazed, it's been months since I had one of these. I had to go all out.

And it was delicious.

See how happy I am? 

Pure, child joy right there. 

But let's continue with the rest of the day ja?

After chowing down on the delicious donut and feeling content, we walked to the big cathedral that resides in Uppsala.

Outside of Cathedral.

Free drinks and snacks in a cathedral?
Yes, please

After the cathedral, we then ventured off to the castle where we found Indian Bazaars and a breathtaking view of the small city.

 I wasn't kidding about the gorgeous view.

Ok, let's get educational now.

In the middle of the castle quad area and in the middle of the Indian bazaars was a old white Volkswagen mini bus with the Swedish flag painted on both sides. 

This isn't some regular old random white Volkswagen mini-bus though.

This bus traveled all around Europe during World War II and was meant to pick up Swedes in different countries, but actually picked up Jews and brought them to Sweden

Pretty cool right?

I never really heard about Sweden during World War II as it was just a country that was just chillaxin' ( I learned this word from my new Swedish friend who coined it...yes she coined it).

Side note/story: "Sverige" means Sweden in Swedish. My sister's boyfriend read it as "Ceviches" and thought I stood next to a sign that read "Ceviches". My response, "Yes, it is ceviche and the people inside are the local ceviches."

Rest of the day was more laid back, walking around Uppsala listening to Bollywood music and pushing through the crowds, and eating a fresh Falafel wrap straight out of the food stand and then ended it with a view of a dress rehearsal of an apocalyptic Hamlet play.

Yes Apocalyptic Hamlet and yes it was entirely in Swedish.

I understood three words:

-Valkomnen: meaning, "Welcome" in Swedish

-Hamlet

-William Shakespeare

The rest of the play I stood there with a blank confused stare for the full 30 minutes.

I thought I knew Hamlet from the book/movie in high school and from watching The Lion King multiple times in my childhood, but this questioned my knowledge of the play.

With four glass walls on the stage, and the main character drawing hearts and equations, then connecting the four glass walls together and having two zombie maids come out and rotate the glass walls, then Hamlet shooting a guy, who I believe was a metaphor for Jesus because the guy was wearing all white, and then a beat up car appeared with demons and more zombies, Swedish cider and Hamlet getting choked with thunder and lightening and a dead angel twitching on the ground.

My face was still a blank and confused stare.....

And then concludes my entire Culture Day/Night, satisfying, confusing, entertaining and refreshing all in one, similar to a regular day in Sweden.

sweden 101

Today was my first official day of Swedish class.
Yes, the day that you/ I have been waiting for. I am no going to learn Swedish and hopefully be one with the locals.
Here are some of the words that I learned.

Hello- Hej (pronounced "Hey")
Realization: I have been saying "Hi" in Swedish my entire life not knowing that I was speaking Swedish. ::mind blown::

Yes - Ja (pronounced "Ya")
Ya Know?

USA- USA (pronounced: oo!-ess!-ah! -- exclamation point necessary)
It was at this moment that me and a girl from California proceeded to chant OO-ESS-AH in the middle of class. 'Murica patriotism right there.

I learned sentences and how to introduce myself, but those pronunciations are still a work in progress. Maybe next post or the post after that.

After my Swedish class I biked over to my next class, which is my media class where I had to do a group presentation.

First, let's start with the bikes.
Normally I would have walked to the building as it is still sunny and warm and I want to take advantage of that, but I decided to be Swedish and bike to class. It was fine, nothing happened
...but let me tell you about the parking.
When I say a lot of people in Uppsala bike, I mean A LOT OF PEOPLE IN UPPSALA BIKE.
Literally.
Parking my bike in front of the building reminds me of parking in Walnut Creek during the holidays....or parking in Walnut Creek in general.

Walnut Creek status right there.

It took me about 5 minutes to figure out where I could park my bike and eventually found one, but I had to squeeze it in. It was a struggle, but I did it.

Note: the building that I'm about to show is not the building that we normally meet, this was a special day where we had to present presentations on a special board. 

Please observe the photos:

That big circular thing under the gray bowl is where my classroom was.

interactive white boards, we got really excited.

like really excited

This was our presentation on Women of Color in American Television, like I said: we had a little too much fun.

Lena Dunham was the devil for our presentation.
Note: I do not think Lena Dunham is the devil, I absolutely love this show and her writing styles, it just related to what we were saying. Lena if you ever read this, I'm sorry, I didn't do this.

Background story: Ours and other presentations were on smart boards like this all around the room and the purpose was to present this to the class and give critique on what they could do better.

Our presentation went semi- well and I say semi-well because well, my professor cannot make up his mind. 

To make this story short: When we first presented our idea the original idea was "Women Representation in American Television" but,the professor didn't like it, and gave us no critique. Then we asked for his critique again and he said he liked the idea, but needed to make it more specific, thus lead to the topic of "Why are there so few women of color in American television". 

He didn't like it. 

His body language was a little insulting as I was presenting (if you have done SuperCamp one would understand how important body language is when a person is talking). As his critique was as confusing as his critique in the beginning. He interrupted me during the presentation and gave me the "you are doing this all wrong" attitude.

I'm sorry professor but when you ask us to pick any topic in Media and give us a free for all, there shouldn't be a "you are doing this all wrong attitude". Get your shit together Carol. 

But enough of my rant on my professor

Let's get to what I ate today.

WAFFLES!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I had myself my first Swedish waffle. I even made a scene in the cafe when I found out, hashtag judge me hashtag whoa fimage. 

It was delicious and just like I imagined it. 

Let's gaze on this beauty. 

Isn't it beautiful?
And yes it was delicious. Very delicious, I would have had more but I got too full.
Maybe next time, because there will be a next time.

Quick bit before I let it go.

Biking to and from my dorm has been easy but there is one thing I forgot to mention. There are bugs here and lots of them. Little tiny black bugs that fly on you and get stuck and sometimes get in your eye when you're biking so you have to stop in the middle of the bikeway and skillfully rub you're eye so you don't ruin your eye makeup but successfully get the bug out.
Ja, those bugs.
Half the bike ride, I'm swatting away at these little black nuggets on my shirt and my face.
Also, I realized that just like slow drivers in America, there are slow bikers in Sweden and when I mean slow drivers I'm targeting the elderly population. (I'm sorry, but there is such thing as going to slow and taking up the whole road/bike path taking their sweet time........it exists).
Of course, my genetic road rage kicked in and I became that angry bike rider who sped up next to the slow bike rider and then biked in front of them, just like the drivers do in America.

I became that person.

That's all the ranting/storytelling I have for today folks, maybe next post will be a little lighter......

Below My Feet - Mumford & Sons

sniffleupogus

What did I do my first weekend off from my first week of Swedish school?
Stay home because I was sick and dying.
Ok, not literally dying but I felt like it.
But yes, I was sick. Apparently there is like a fat sick bug going around Uppsala because me and the rest of the students here are getting sick, so I wasn't alone, which made me feel better (mentally, not physically).
I debated whether or not I should go out on Friday night, but then my sinuses started to act up and I ended up getting 4 hours of sleep, so there went my Friday night. And I'm pretty sure I didn't leave my housing village on Saturday because I was so sick, I did, however, go to the grocery store to get OJ and soup and that was a struggle bus.
First, everybody was at the grocery store because the majority of the baskets were gone and everywhere I went, I ran into people and got claustrophobic while searching for soup in the soup aisle.
Also not to mention that there is a small hill going to and from the grocery store. That hill is hell when you are sick, I was sweating bullets.
But after a bowl of soup and toast, with some tea and about 10 episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? I'm feeling decently better. Let's just hope it stays that way this week, cuz this whole staying in my building and not seeing the light of day is just not the bizz yo. I need my Swedish air.

But on the good side, I'm going to Berlin. In October, for "educational" reasons.
No, I'm just joking. But I really am going to Berlin for educational reasons.  So from October 28th-November 1st, I will be strolling in Berlin learning about German media, drinking German beer, eating German food, attempting to speak German and "partying so hard over there, it will be crazy!"

Shake- The Head and the Heart

impressions

It is said that "first impressions are important", which I guess is true in some cases and false in others, in my situation, however, first impressions are awkward.

Story time:
It's the third day of class and we were discussing articles that groups have read and representing them on poster.
A certain group's poster was two people watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians and how it portrayed society watching aimless TV shows and brainwashing them.
My professor however, did not know who the Kardashians was and asked for some clarification.
This is when I came into the picture. My explanation:
"Well, the father of the Kardashian family was OJ Simpson's lawyer and one of the daughters....uh...well, she's famous for making a sex tape."
::enter awkward silence::
Professor: "ok then...::blah blah blah blah blah:: watching TV shows about people making sex tapes"
And there goes the first impression on America and on myself.
I could have said that the daughter is married to Kanye West and not made an awkward impression of myself, instead I went straight into the sex tape.
I should really think before I talk, it could go a long way and save me from awkward moments and awkward first impressions.

Touch The Sky-Kanye West (Cuz I mean he's married to the girl who made that sex tape....)

my first day

Today was my first day of Swedish school, strangely it wasn't as adventurous as I thought it would be, but there were some mini-adventures.
1. I couldn't find my schedule. The day that I start class and I couldn't find my schedule.
Who has two thumbs, a messy bun and is a responsible 20 year old? <---This girl is.
Let me explain, though. Like really, let me explain.
I did find my schedule a couple of days ago and saw that my class started at 5, so I was like cool, I get to sleep in.
And then it disappeared on me. Don't ask me how, I just couldn't find it.
Luckily with a help from a friend and searching the Swedish internet for a solid hour, I found the correct time and place for my class to start. 4 hours before my class started.
Now I'm a responsible 20 year old with two thumbs and a messy bun.

Then I took a walk, one to get air since I was cooped up in my room for 2 hours and also to turn in a paper, and I got lost.
I know, just when I thought I knew my way around, I ended up getting lost. I guess I spoke to soon when I stated that I know my way around.
But let's be real, this place was right next to a cemetery hidden by trees, a quite modern looking building for being next to a cemetery. But I found it and that's all that matters.

Now let's get to my very first day.

This is the building where I will be taking all my classes.
Modern looking-cool right?

Except for the part where I almost went to the wrong building.

Yup, I was that new student. 15 minutes before class and I almost went into the wrong classroom.

Luckily, I asked and got into the right classroom.

Still that responsible 20 year old...

I then sat in a classroom filled with 30+ students for 2 hours and my brain got overwhelmed.

My brain started to hurt and it's still recovering.

Too many projects/assignments/group work all smushed into 4 weeks.

And to top it all off, 3 days where I am 8am classes.

Joy. 

On the bright side, I made new friends!

Yay for new friends!!!!

Fun fact: 

During a 10 minute break in class, we got free coffee.

Yes free coffee.

Good Swedish coffee, nice and hot and brewed with cream and sugar for us to have during class.

I'm not kidding, this happened.

I got so excited you have no idea.

If this is what it's going to be like every class time, I am so excited to go to class everyday now.

And that was my day, not as adventurous but was semi-eventful.

Oh and I almost forgot.

I GOT A BIKE!!!!!!!!! 

don't all celebrate at once.

But yes, I got a purple beach like cruiser bike for 900SEK and I'm still adjusting to it.

And today I attempted to bike to class and be like all the Swedish students, cool right?

Not when you are wearing a maxi dress where it is short in the front and long in the bike and it's a windy day.

Whoever said "nothing is impossible" clearly has never biked in a maxi dress on a windy day in Sweden. 

It was a balancing act to hold the long part of the dress in one hand and the handlebar of the bike in another and attempt to not flash the locals on the bike.

The wind was not in my favor because I ended up walking with my bike half of the time.

The one time I try to look Swedish and fit in and I end up failing.

Note: do not attempt to ride a bike with a maxi dress, either change or walk it.

End of first day of school story, here is a new tune:

Grey Street- Dave Matthews Band

settle down

It's been a week since my arrival and I have finally settled down.
Well sort of, kind of.
Still have to go to the Migration Board to get my VISA so I can be offish and stuff,
Get a bike, (which for some reason, seems impossible to get...for me at least)
Get a tax ID number so I can work and get some money on the side, cuz you know money is good and stuff right?
Figure the bejesus out of my schedule (either I'm reading it wrong or my classes are at different times everyday, my sleep cycle is going to be awesome).
But let me just tell you that
1. I FINALLY GOT A PHONE!
I swear I have no idea how these people live without phones, like it was worse than not having Internet. Like how did people communicate with each other before these cellular devices? Like really? I felt lost and alone and cast away-ed on a desert island with my buddy Wilson, except that I don't have a buddy Wilson, my only buddy is a human one and my iPhone which I could only play music on and sometimes message people.
Phones are incredible and there will be no media fast for me in the future.
and
2. I ACTUALLY KNOW MY WAY AROUND!
This is a big deal for me ok guys? In all seriousness, I have no idea how many times I have gotten lost in this small city. Yes, small city. I think it was the fact that everything was in Swedish and that intimidated me because they were long words in Swedish and that stuff just scares me, ya know?
But you have no idea how many times I have been lost meeting with my Swedish buddy/friend and how many texts/calls have included the phrase "uh...I think I went the wrong way again...." ( hashtag foreign move).
It got to the point where the conversation literally went like this via telephone
Buddy: "How are you doing?
Me: "Oh you know the usual, just lost."

::This conversation happened 5 days ago::
Now for the past 5 days and ongoing, I know where to go and it have gone home faster than normal, which is impressive, for me at least. I even take little shortcuts and shave off like 10 seconds off my walking time (look at me being all short cut savvy and all!)
I'm really really proud of this ok? Like you have no idea, unless you have been in a foreign country and gotten lost at least once everyday and taken full 360 circles to the place you were just at.
Power Whoosh for me on 3
1-2-3
::clap clap clap::
WHOOSH!
(thanks for the love guys, i feel it!)


Ok I'm done bye. Listen to this tune.

Settle Down- Kimbra
(wrong settling down, but you get the picture?)